


To Find Our Way

by ok_but_first_tea



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Pining, davenport and merle fluff, every au is a julia lives au if youre not a coward, minimal angst but it's there? kind of?, they dont know it yet but theres a lot of pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 22:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14146104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ok_but_first_tea/pseuds/ok_but_first_tea
Summary: “You’re leaving?”At that Merle’s eyes snapped up. “Well, I’m not going without you, obviously.” He says defensively.Not without him.Neverwinter.-----It's davenchurch time, my dudes





	To Find Our Way

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot thank Fai enough for beta-ing this. They've helped So Much and gave amazing advice. They've been so so kind and supportive and encouraging, I'm super super thankful
> 
> Also it's a modern-ish au and there's magic and I haven't done a great job with the world building, but it's my world now and i can do what i want
> 
> I really hope you like it <3<3!!!

It’s late, and they’re lying in bed. Merle fell asleep hours ago, but Davenport can’t quite get there. Not yet. 

Merle smells like soil. After some careful consideration, Davenport decides that he also smells like flowers. 

He quietly shifts closer to his friend. It’s to hear his breathing better. They’d found out ages ago that it was to calming Dav to listen to Merle’s steady breathing. 

It had started with some hippie meditation techniques Merle wanted to try out. It was supposed to help fight against the migraines.

Merle doesn’t judge him for needing some extra help breathing sometimes. Davenport loved him for it. Merle was his best friend in the world, and he wouldn’t change that for anything.

“Hmm, Dav?” Merle groans, his voice thick with sleep. 

“Yeah?” Davenport whispers back.

“Sleep.”

Dav chuckles. Yeah, alright. Sleep. 

Merle shifted even closer and Davenport curled into his arm, his cheek resting on Merle’s chest. He could feel the steady up and down of his breathing like this.

Merle’s hand ended up somewhere is his hair, and Davenport felt like he could stay forever. Just like that.

Honestly, what would he even do without Merle?

  
  
  


Davenport’s job is nice, if not a little repetitive. He’s head of the Department of Street Furniture Management.They make sure that things are clean, useful, well-placed, and all that other stuff that goes on with fountains, memorials, and bus stops. 

Being the head means he doesn’t do it personally, he just makes sure everyone that does it is working properly, and if anything needs to be done that they can’t, he brings it up the ladder. 

It’s not a bad job. 

The people are decent, and work hours are good. It’s paying well, too, which is a definite plus. Though Davenport can’t get himself to care about that much when the weather outside is so beautiful, snowflakes thick as feathers falling down, and he’s stuck inside. Doing paperwork.

He sighs. 

The people are decent. He gets to work with a lot of artists and designers with beautiful visions for the city. A lot of Landscape Architecture graduates. Creative people. He likes that. 

“Mister Davenport.” Davenport looks up, shaken from his thoughts. It’s Jeremiah from Accounting. 

“Jeremiah.” He greets.

“I have some forms for you, if you have the time.” Jeremiah says. He waves around a deceptively small stack of papers in his hands. Davenport knows the letters are so small it’ll take hours to get through anyway.

Jeremiah sees him look at the papers. 

“Aah, don’t be so down, Sir. It’s not like there’s much else to do with this weather.” Jeremiah looks outside with vague disgust on his face. “It’s too cold to go anywhere.”

“I- I do remember you saying something similar about summer.” Davenport says, and Jeremiah let’s out a chuckle. 

“Alright, yeah, fair.” he says. “Maybe I don’t like going outside much. But like, as species, haven’t we evolved past that, you know.”Jeremiah looks off out in the distance “Like, why go outside, apart from like, going somewhere as specific, where we can go inside again, everything we need is here.”

Davenport smiles, though it feels like a mask. He wonders how anyone could truly think like that.

“I’d like to argue about that, but I have just heard I have some extra paperwork to get to.” Davenport motions to the stack of paper and Jeremiah hands it to him. “I’ll have it back to you by Thursday. You should be good to get it done Friday. No need to carry this over the weekend.” 

“Thank you, Mister Davenport.”

Davenport nods, thumbing through the papers.

“Alright, well that’s it. I’ll let you know if anything changes.” Jeremiah says.

“Goodbye, Jeremiah.” Davenport says, and as Jeremiah turns around he quickly adds, “oh and if you could please close the door when you leave. I’d like to get through this as quick as possible, so I’d rather not be bothered.”

“Of course, Sir.” 

As soon as the door shuts, Davenport lets his posture slump, his body hanging forward in his chair. He sighs, and dramatically, in the safety of his own empty office, let his head thump down on the stack of papers he’ll be working through in the next few days. 

He allows himself to wallow for maybe three seconds before picking his head back up. He grabs the 1B pencil from the neatly labelled pencil case on its designated place on his desk. It’s right next to the little ficus Merle had given him.

Davenport has work to do, and he really would like to get it done as quickly as possible. 

Davenport’s job is nice. It really is. He just doesn’t always like it that much.

  
  


 

They are lying on the floor of their tiny apartment. Officially, it was Davenport’s apartment, but Merle moved in after his divorce. 

Merle had promised it would be only temporarily and he’d be out of his hair in no time. Davenport had decidedly not cared how long it would take as long as Merle would be okay. That had been four years ago now. 

Dav looks at the last rays of sunlight draining away from the ceiling as he listens to Merle go on about his day. He was supposed to be telling Dav about the day he had visiting his kids, but they’d gotten on a bit of a tangent.

“-can’t even go outside with this weather when everyone is staring at you like you’re insane. Keep mistaking me for a homeless person, too. Honestly, I don’t get how anyone is supposed to get things done like this.” Merle rants on about it. 

It’s not that he doesn’t like winter. It’s not. 

Merle likes the cool air, and the relative quiet it brings. But because it’s winter, every time he goes to some park he gets these weird looks, and the garden shop he works at in the summer is closed, too. 

He doesn’t like what winter brought with it for the people of the city. 

When Merle finishes his little rant, he pauses.

After a short stretch of silence, Dav speaks up.

“I don’t like how, at the office, everyone keeps complaining. Working longer. Especially now it’s winter and they don’t have anything else to do but complain.” Davenport says. “It’s dark so early, and not that I mind that. I think I don’t mind winter, but-” He pauses. He doesn’t know what it is. 

All in all, life is good, right? He has a good friend, a good job, a kind place to call home but still. 

“But?” Merle asks. 

“But, well.” He sighs. “Are you happy, Merle? Really happy.” 

Merle doesn’t answer right away. Dav looks over to him and finds Merle already looking at him.

“You aren’t?” Merle asks, and it’s too raw. He feels too vulnerable like this, so he turns his head back to the ceiling.

“I mean- I mean, I should be right? I have a nice home and I have a good- a good friend who’s always there for me. And it’s a good job, the people are nice.”

“But?” Merle asks again when the silence gets to be too much.

“But, are we really in our place here?” 

Honestly, Merle hadn’t thought much about that. There was the obvious of this being a functionally one person apartment inhabited by two people. But he knew that wasn’t what Dav meant.

Merle had stayed in many places. Big cities with lifeless streets and even worse inhabitants. Small beach communities where newcomers were eyed suspiciously. But he’d never lived in a place that felt as much like home as this. 

“Where else would we go?” Merle asks.

“I don’t know.” Davenport says, shaking the thought from his head. “Forget it. It’s- It’s dumb. Just, the winter getting to me, you know?”

“Trust me, buddy, I know.” Merle says, but he sounds distracted. His mind elsewhere.

He’s been on the road all day, must be getting tired, Dav thinks. Which reminds him...

“I meant to ask, what did Marvis think of the books?”

“Oh yeah! She loves them!” Merle beams, “She’s reading so well these days, Dav. Best of her class, the teacher said. She really liked the adventure one so far, the one with the uuh, that woman,”

“Nandra?”

“Yes! That one. She loves it. She’s halfway now with the other one, the space one.”

Davenport smiles. Ever since Marvis started reading, she and Dav had been exchanging books. First really simple ones, but she was quickly moving on to the bigger ones. It’s amazing how fast she is growing up. 

“I’m glad. I was hoping she’d like that one. Was one of my favorites when i was a kid.”

“How long have you been waiting to give her that one?”

“Forever.” Davenport answers seriously. He glances over at Merle. As soon as they catch each other’s eye they burst out laughing.

  
  
  


 

Merle steps through the leaves of the small city park. He sees some stuff he recognises from what Dav worked on. One statue in particular had brought his friend headaches for months. 

He looks at it for a bit, appreciating the work and all the talking that went into getting it there.

Merle looks around at the few trees. They look sad. 

Where he grew up there were so many trees. You could stand on a hill and feel like there was no city out there at all. As a child he had watched the trees, so big and old, and so strong, and felt tiny. He’d felt honoured to be a part of that. To be special, and to be allowed to worship Pan like he was a special tiny ant in a sea of millions. 

As a teen, he’d always felt like they were closing in on him. 

As he grew up and started to question his parents- his beliefs, more and more, the trees felt powerful in a whole new, different way. An oppressing way. Something that watched him everywhere he went. 

Merle misses the trees. Despite everything, he does. By trading the trees for grey blocks of cement, he’d only given himself less air to breathe.

Though, here he had a home filled with love, genuine love, and that was already incredible, right? 

Dav hadn’t even thought about turning him away when he arrived with next to nothing on his doorstep. He hadn’t even considered it as he took Merle in. 

Merle, at that point, wasn’t even pretending to be okay. He’d felt broken. Alone. But he’d worked hard since then to get better.

Back then, the city had felt not like a haven, but more of a fog. A safe place where it didn’t matter if he fell apart or not. No one would see it, either way. 

Now, the city felt empty- or not empty. It felt... weak. 

The only life force holding it together was the jittery energy of people coming in and out of town. Merle had felt on his place in the faceless crowd. In the broken bones of a community. He’d felt broken, and community had honestly been the last thing he wanted. 

He didn’t need people to question him. Where he’d been, or what he’d been doing.

The people here only cared if you stayed within your lane, which had been good enough for Merle back then.

Dav had taken one look at Merle’s pale face and worn out heart and went “Yeah. Yeah, you’ll fit right in.”. Back then, Dav wasn’t faring much better than Merle.

He was scared, Davenport, though he wouldn’t admit it. Make-up on his face is the most subtle way. Covering up unnatural imperfection. Covering up for empty eyes and shaking hands that ran on a few too many energy drink, and a few too little sleep. 

Merle had taken one look at him and went “Yeah. Yeah, guess we’re in the same boat here then”. 

Healing was hard, but easier when there was someone every turn being so proud of you. Someone who was genuinely proud, not to encourage them because it would make them more functional, to rejoin society or whatever bullshit they said these days. Someone who was proud because they knew it was fucking hard. 

And it had been hard-- so hard, but they’d grown. Their minds had grown, as did their hearts. 

Maybe they’d grown more than there was place for in the city, Merle mused.

  
  
  
  


Davenport is cooking, methodically dicing vegetables.

The day hadn’t been anything special. It never was, but the more of these days he had, the more of a drag they became. Still, it wasn’t all bad.

He got a lot of work done. He’s still thinking about how his hand is cramped from all the writing, when Merle brings it up.

“So I was thinking,” he says, from the small kitchen table. His voice briefly wavers.

“Yes?” Dav prompts him.

“I saw this, um, well. I saw an advert. For a job.” Merle nervously picks at the newspaper in front of him, catches himself, and lays his hands flat on the table.

“Oh?” Davenport says. He pauses his cutting and looks at Merle, “Something you’re interested in?” 

Merle swallows thickly, and nods. 

“It’s aaah...” Merle starts, avoiding eye contact. Davenport puts his knife down settles down at the table across from Merle. He takes Merle’s hand in his and squeezes, short and supportive.

Merle takes a deep breath.

“It’s somewhere near Neverwinter.” 

Dav takes a while to process that. 

“That’s halfway across the country.” Dav says factually. It’s halfway across the country, he thinks. His brain has trouble getting the message through. It was more than a day to travel. They were never that far apart, not for so long. Not permanently. 

“Sure is. So, uhhh what-” Merle says, “What do you think?” 

“I- well I. I don’t know, I-” He didn’t know. Or, actually, that was a lie. He felt like his heart was ripped in half, the scarred edges of them grating on his being. He felt like he’d been thrown out of a moving car and tumbled down a well. He felt like a pipe on the verge of bursting, the first cracks starting to form. 

“You’re leaving?”

At that Merle’s eyes snapped up. “Well, I’m not going without you, obviously.” He says defensively.

Not without him. 

Neverwinter. 

“You’re asking me to move to Neverwinter with you?” Davenport asks. Merle goes to pull his hand away from Dav’s, but Dav snatches it back. 

“It was a stupid question anyw-”

“No Merle, I didn’t mean no, I meant-” and really, what does he mean? “-You’d want me to come with you?” 

He felt too vulnerable. Davenport didn’t like feeling vulnerable. It was too easy to be hurt that way, too easy to be caught off guard. But he trusts Merle, and whatever this mess of a conversation is, they need to have it.

“Dav, you’re my best friend, you’ve let me live in your home for four years now. Of course I want you to come with me.”

_ It wouldn’t be home without you. _ Davenport wants to say. But he doesn’t. Instead he says,

“Tell me about the job.” 

 

The job was for a gardener. Full-time gardener of a castle somewhere in a valley between mountains, near Neverwinter. A little closer by, on the other side, there was a village called Refuge.

 

Madam Lucretia, the owner of the place, needed someone good with plants, who was okay with living in the middle of nowhere with the closest neighbours a two hour walk away. 

 

They’d had some contact via letters, and she was fine with an extra person. Especially since they wouldn’t even need different rooms. They’d been sharing the same room for years. With Merle’s occasion nightmares and Dav’s chronic insomnia, they preferred it like that. Both of them would be accommodated for food and anything else they’d need, which is nice of her. 

Madam Lucretia had been formal, but overall she made a kind impression in her letters. 

Dav had had a lot of questions, but he could clearly see how happy this was making Merle. The idea of mountains and trees and a new place, a new adventure, was lighting Merle up. His steps had a certain bounce in them.

How could Davenport ever said no to something that made Merle that happy?

Packing things up had gone nicely, too. Merle hadn’t realized how  _ shared _ everything was. Their lives reflecting in their things. In their home.

Pulling the straps of his backpack tighter, Dav feels something he hasn’t felt in a long time. Something he thought he’d put behind him, but now lights a fire in him where he thought the snow had settled. 

Adventure.

“Are you ready?” Dav asks him, putting the last box in the wagon to ride to the castle. They didn’t have many boxes. They didn’t have many things to put in boxes, but they hadn’t needed much. They had each other.

“You’ll be there, right?” Merle says, “Can’t be too bad when my best friend is there.”

  
  


They aren’t lost. 

They aren’t. 

They’re just, ambiguously sightseeing. 

They had been for a while now. It’s starting to get late and honestly, Merle and Davenport both would rather be at the castle by the time the sun goes down.

Davenport had thought it was going too smoothly. He knew it.

Everything had gone so well, of course they were lost somewhere in the mountains, and it would get _ dark  _ and maybe there are wild animals here and they’d get _ eaten  _ or they’d never find it and _ freeze to death in the night or starve and-  _

“-there? Just focus on my voice, alright. We’ll be fine. I promise.” Davenport blinks rapidly, there are tears in his eyes he hadn’t noticed before. Merle’s face is hovering right in front of him. “There you go. Hey, you’re back.”

Davenport had gone. He had panicked in a not even that stressful situation, letting his friend do all the work. Of course he had! One of these days he was bound to fuck up.

“I’m- I’m so sorry, Mer-” 

Merle cut him off. “I won’t like it if you finish that sentence, buddy.”

Davenport watches Merle for a few seconds with wide, unblinking eyes. Merle’s expression softened.

“Hey Dav. It’s okay, Dav. It’s okay, I’m right here.” He put up his hand, clearly telegraphing him motions but no matter how slow he went, he still startles Davenport. 

Merle softly takes his hand and holds it up between them. 

“What’s your name?” Merle asks.

“Davenport.” His answer doesn’t come immediately, nor is his voice smooth. But he answers.

“That’s right. Now say mine?”

“Merle.” It came out between a sigh and a prayer. A heavy sob as escapes him as Merle locks him in an embrace. 

“What are we doing here, Merle?” He asks through the tears. “I mean, aren’t we to old for- for these kind of thi- hings. Turn our lives ar- around? Shouldn’t we be adults, here?”

Merle is quiet for a bit. He turns to his friend with softness in his eyes and a genuine note in his tone.

“Is it ever too late to want to be happy?” He asks. 

Davenport’s eyes snap up at him from where they were lingering around the mountains. He looked like he might fall over if something poked him. Merle was honestly in awe of how much Davenport let himself be vulnerable around him where he used to shut down. 

“I’m so proud of how far we’ve come, Dav.” He couldn’t help but say. “Can’t stop now, right?”

Davenport forces his breathing back under control, wrestling his lungs into cooperation. 

Merle watched as Davenport took a breath and let go of his anxieties while he took back control of his brain. 

When he looked back up at Merle, Merle could see the clear, familiar gaze in the eyes of his brilliant, brilliant friend. 

“You’re right.” Dav said shortly, nodding at Merle and straightening his back. He was ready for whatever these mountains wanted to throw at them.

  
  


It turned out not to be all that much. Not much at all, though Merle managed to keeps Davenport’s mind off of that for the most part. 

Whenever Dav even thought about inching toward a downward spiral, Merle picked him up.

“Look! Pine trees!” he yelled.

“Merle, we’ve seen hundreds of pine trees today.” Davenport said, but it didn’t dent Merle’s enthusiasm.

“Did you know that pine trees never die?” Merle said. Dav laughed.

“I- um. I don’t think that’s- that’s right, Merle.” He said around trying to keep in his chuckles. Merle looked extremely pleased, though.

“Hey!” Merle tried to sound offended, but ended up just sounding happy, “Who’s the plant guy here?”

“Botanist.” Davenport corrected.

“Gesundheit.”

“No- I, well.” Davenport sighed. “Alright.” There was a happy smile dancing along both their faces. 

It went like that a few more times. Merle tried to use his wilderness survival skills, but no luck. 

“Merle. Merle, you don’t know how to read moss.”

“And how would you know that? I’ll have you know I’m an  _ expert  _ moss reader.”

“Well, first of that’s not moss. That’s just weeds.”

Merle let out a mock offended gasp. “Oh, that’s it.” He said and jumped over to Davenport, his arms outstretched and ready for a tickle attack. 

Davenport, ever quick on his feet, jumped out of the way.

It was  _ war _ .

“How dare you escape m-Eee!” Merle said, falling over. 

“You’ll never catch me!” Davenport yelled dramatically, already running to hide behind a big rock absolutely drowning in the weeds Merle had previously been trying to “read”. Of course, there’s not much hiding when your opponent can see you running there.

“Wait until I-...” Merle yelled back, wheezing. He was out of breath at least half from laughing so much. “Until I catch you!!” he finished.

Merle was getting closer to the rock, when Dav jumped out from behind it. His eyes were glinting with delight. 

“Oh no.” Merle managed to choke out before being pounced on by Dav. His clever hands running across his ribcage. Both of them were howling with laughter.

“Nooohohohoo!! No no please Dahahahav, Oh My Pan,” Merle wheezed out between laughs “You’re  _ evil. _ ” 

When Dav finally gave mercy, Merle had to wipe the tears from his eyes. They were both catching their breath, but Dav looked on triumphantly as he sat on top of Merle. Waiting until both of their breathing steadied out. 

Merle was covered in dirt and a few odd leaves hanging in his hair. It was good look on him, Dav decided. He was tempted to pick some flowers to put in his beard. The blue little flowers of a forget-me-not would really bring out his eyes, which shared the color. 

Forget-me-not’s were probably Davenport’s favorite flowers.

“Dav?” Merle asked, shaking him out of his thoughts. 

“Hmm?” Davenport said.

“I said let’s go. Before I fall asleep here.” 

“Oh!” Davenport said, standing up from where he was still straddling Merle’s waist. He must have been suffocating him, Dav thought. “Of course! Yes.”

He held out a hand for Merle to help him up. 

As soon as he was up, Merle beamed at him.

“Look over there!” He pointed. “I think that’s a house, we can go ask directions and if we are really lost, and it’ll be dark before we get at the castle, we can just stay there or find the nearest inn or something.”

And as it were, there was a house there. A little cabin, barely visible, but not too far away.

“Let’s go.” Davenport said, squeezing their hands as they moved back towards the wagon.

 

“Hail and well met!” Merle greets as a sturdy looking woman opens the door.

“Hello!” the woman answers happily, if not a tad bit confused. She looks around the mountain valley and spots their wagon. “What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

“Ah, we’re looking for a certain Praesidium Praesaepio,” Merle says. A frown formed on the lady’s face. Davenport steps in.

“It’s a- It’s a castle.”

“Oh! You mean Castle Castle!” She says, and then instantly after that “Don’t tell Lucretia I called it that.” 

She gives them a big look over and something behind her eyes clicks. 

“You must be here for the job, the gardener one!” she says. Her voice growing louder as she gets more sure they aren’t there with bad intentions.   
“Yeah! Yeah, that’s us. I’m Merle, ” Merle holds out his hand for her to take, “and this is Davenport.” Davenport’s nods at her as way of acknowledgement.   
“Oh that’s so nice to meet you!” she says, “I’m Julia. Guess I’ll be your new neighbor.” she laughs.

“Oh good, does that mean we’re almost there?” Merle says looking around. 

“Aaaahhh…… sort of?” Julia says, her expression uncertain but her eyes still laughing with delight. “You and your husband are more than welcome to stay the night if you want to rest before going on. I imagine you must have made quite the journey.” 

Davenport sputters, but Merle barely bats an eye.    
“Oh, we’re not, uh, married.” Merle says, “But that’s a very kind offer. I told Dav earlier I was sure the people around here had to be nice. I mean, with such a nice view how can anyone really be mean? But that’s a very kind of you to offer.”

Davenport recovers, only a slight blush dusting his face, and damn his face for blushing so easily.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about the kind people thing.” Julia says, eyeing one mountain in the distance in particular.

“Could you give us an estimate of how long it’ll be with the wagon?” Davenport asks.

Julia furrows her brow and says “About an hour? Two, if you really push it. You should be fine if you leave now, but please, feel free to come by soon!”

“Sure will!” Merle shouts at the same time as Dav says, “Yes! Definitely!”

They both waved as they left, more certain of where the were going this time. It wasn’t until they stepped back onto the wagon that they realized their hands were still joined.

 

They found the castle easily enough after that. They also found, curiously, a Fantasy Costco, in what had to be the most remote place for a Fantasy Costco to be.

From where it was, you could clearly see Preapsio peasiopio…? You could clearly see Castle Castle across the lake. Merle and Davenport now understand why they call it that, too. The name was impossible to remember.

Davenport is still reveling in the size of the lake, they can only really see a small portion of it. His smile hecked something loose inside Merle’s chest. Something light and fluffy. He likes it.

“I think, we might have just made the right choice, coming here.” He says to Davenport. Davenport only smiles back at him, his smile more authentic than any of the ones he’d seen in the last two months combined while still back home. 

It is already getting harder to think of that place as home after having journeyed through the mountains not even a day, since most of the day- and the previous one, for that matter- had been spend travelling through cities and from villages to villages. It was already so easy to see themselves spending their days here.

They reach the big, imposing doors of Castle Castle. After a short squabble over who should knock, Merle took the big handle and brought it down with a resounding  **clang** .

The answer came quick. Very quick for the size of the castle. Lucretia had said in her letters there were no other people living in the castle, she must have been waiting for them nearby.

A woman answered, her short hair trimmed short, and her eyes kind, with maybe a hint of relief, as she opened. 

“Welcome, the two of you. To Praesidium Praesaepio” She said. “I’m Lucretia.” She stuck out her hand.

Davenport straightened up and shook it. 

“Nice to meet you, Lucretia. I’m Davenport,” he shakes her hand firmly and then places his free hand on the small of Merle’s back, guiding him forward towards Lucretia. To an outsider it may seem only to include Merle, but Merle knows it is really to put someone between him and the stranger.

“Hail and well met!” He greets her, “I’m Merle.”

Lucretia smiles warmly and invites them in. 

“Did you find your way alright?” She asks.

“Oh, we almost got lost. But you know, Castle Castle isn’t that hard to find.” Merle says. Lucretia splutters. 

“How did you- I mean, already, I- ugh, fine.” She says. Davenport would feel bad for her if he wasn’t so tired.

She guided them to their room without all that much small talk. They’d go over everything after breakfast tomorrow, but for now they’d made quite the journey and were getting really,  _ really  _ tired. 

Lucretia thinks both the dwarf and the gnome look just about ready to fall over.

“I’ll see you two in the morning, but for now I’ll leave you and your husband alone. You will probably want to rest up. I’ll get the wagon into the stall to be dealt with tomorrow, too.” She explains.

“We’re not married, actually.” Davenport says this time, with only a bit of a blush dusting his face. Lucretia freezes.   
“Oh- I um, i’m sorry for assuming, you and err-” She stumbles through her words.

“Don’t worry about it!” Merle pipes up, “Happens all the time.”

“Well, I’ll uhm, see you tomorrow then.” She says, recomposing herself. It’s clear that bringing her from her probably studied-in little speeches and phrases makes her feel very off centre. 

“Goodnight Lucretia!” Davenport said, already looking around the room. Merle nods warmly, and Lucretia smiles as she leaves, the door closing behind her.

Merle let his backpack join Davenport’s at the side of the bed. He puts his hands on his hips and surveys it- Unlike the bed at their used-to-be home, this one is actually build for two people. It’s build for beings much bigger than them, too, much like the rest of the room. High vaulted ceilings and long, long windows. 

The view is beautiful, too. They can see the lake, and as the sun shimmered away behind the mountains, Davenport just knew you could see the stars reflecting into the waters at night.

It’s beautiful. 

The big, rectangular shape of the Fantasy Costco is only slightly jarring the view, in Davenports opinion. In Merle’s opinion, it’s absolutely perfect. 

Merle’s content. The room has a huge bed. It contained an en-suite, and, most importantly, it had his friend. 

“What do you think?” Merle asks. Davenport tear his eyes away from the view, and looks at Merle. 

“I like it.” he says. For Davenport, that’s as good as a love declaration. 

Merle smiled. “Yeah, me too.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!


End file.
